The first assignments were nothing complicated,just short writing exercises to be built laterinto larger projects. I was supposed to look forsome image, some event or story that had whatVirginia Woolf called "shocking power." What Icame up with was, well, nothing.

Next we were to find the idea behind thatimage--the simple truth that the image supportedas evidence. Then we were to write an essay. Ieventually wrote a stilted, halting piece aboutcommunicating with my dad. Looking back at thatpiece, I do see the seeds of somethinginteresting. But just the seeds.

Meanwhile, my roommate Christopher, who was taking Expos with another professor, showed me his first piece. Christopher is a computer science major with ambitions to study artificial intelligence. I was flattered when he asked me to read his work--itseemed he wanted my approval. Turns out he hadwritten the most fluid, mature, sensitive pieces Ihad seen in recent memory. And writing wasn't evenhis thing. That killed me.

Expos got worse. If I had trouble writing aboutmy dad, producing a critical essay on E.B. Whitewas a nightmare. By the time the third project wasdue, shortly before spring break, I experiencedenormous anxiety trying to describe my piece tothe rest of the class. As they sat looking at meuneasily, I began to cry.

This wasn't just the case of an overachieverhumbled by a tough college professor. I wasn'tconcerned in the slightest about grades. Reachingdeep inside myself for creative insight, I wasfinding only unexplored pain.

My first-year at Harvard wasn't my first brushwith emotional trouble. But until then, I'd justput off my anxieties, expecting the future wouldwork things out. When I broke down, my mom steppedin to nurture my confidence about the future. Weboth figured college would be a great place tostart. My high school class numbered about 120. Ihad friends, but few of them really related to myinner core. I thought that at Harvard I would meetpeople who would.

I was right. If there is one common threadamong undergraduates here, it's that our minds areworking non-stop--"Like sixty" as the GreatBrain books used to describe it. That mentalactivity isn't always concentrated on composingpoetry or theorizing on mathematical problems,though. A lot of it is obsessive and negative.Acute sensitivity to the rich pastiche of Life isa wonderful asset but it can also lead to a lot ofpain.

Fully understanding that paradox was shocking.It meant me and my mom were only partly right.Everything wasn't going to be just fine. Somethings would. Some wouldn't. And I was just goingto have to deal.

I was right in thinking that I'd meet new andexciting people. Bet I was wrong to think thatestablishing intimacy with such delicate andcomplex men and women would be easy. I've livedwith Ashvin for three years now and we've got onemore to go. That first year was only a tiny partof the development of our friendship. Happenedthat he had a girlfriend who demanded all of histime and went on psychotic rampages when heresisted. Jenny, too, had a boyfriend, although hewas quite sane. These people, and some others,would eventually bring me enormous comfort. But Ihad a ways to go before our relationships couldmature.

The weight of Expos and my other classes becamepretty overwhelming that spring. I rememberresearching a big history paper, absentmindedlywandering through the stacks of Widener, thenLamont, then the Law School library. I returnedhome with a stack of ten books--exhausted withanxiety, sure I could never put that knowledge towork for me.

It wasn't just the schoolwork, either. My suitewas not exactly conducive to broadening one'ssocial horizons. Christopher firmly believed inbeing asocial as a way of life, except when itcame to women. His high school girlfriend was alsoat Harvard and, until they started having troublelater in the fall, I barely knew who he was. Wecalled him the phantom roommate. Takashi mainlydid his own thing. and then there was Bigley. Kenwas a special case. he really struggled hisfirstyear--spent most of his time in the roomhunched over the desk, springing up to lookthrough the eyehole every time he heard somethingin the hall.

Ashvin, as I've said, was great. But there wasalways the evil girlfriend Navarra, looming in ourroom. The stories about her are worthy of severalvolumes alone. I think the best concerns the timeshe threw a fit after Ashvin resisted going toboth nights of her four or five hour danceperformance, She came into our room, nodded to me,wrote a note on his desk and looked in his closetfor some clothes. I didn't think much of it--shedid that all the time. Turns out she wrote in thenote that she had "cut to shreds the thing youlove most--your crew jacket." She was bluffingAsbyin laughing at the absurdity of the situationwhile he anguished over how to reconcile withNavarra, insisted that we all read the note.

I wanted out. My brother David, my most trustedconfidante through that whole year, brought meback to reality every time I called him in acrisis. School is a pressure cooker, he told me.Bailing out of Harvard was not going to be myelixir, but it couldn't hurt to go home, eat somehome-cooked apple pie and collect my thoughts, ifthat was what I wanted to do. One day after RobertKiely's English class, I got up to leave, stunnedby his eloquent lecture and, again, frustrated bymy inability to concentrate and utilize thiswealth of intellectual opportunity. I shuffled outwith Charmaine and, as we passed through the doorof Emerson 105 I told her I was going to get someapple pie.

"Enjoy it," she said, I was not communicating my feelings very well.

Like any good writing teacher, pat didn't letme get off the hook by running away. Good writers,he insisted, engage their anxieties anddepression. Not by pouting, but by taking the painand trying to extrapolate a universal truth. hepushed me hard to write a third essay, and afourth, that finally satisfied me. All that year,I felt I was performing for my professors,roommates and friends while my troubles gnawed atmy insides. I learned that spring to fuse the twointo a cohesive, though complex and certainly notideal, whole. I wrote about suicide, hope and my"beautiful friend" Kathy. I think Kathy was usedto having men obsess about her. She dealt with itquite well.